The Lotus Eaters

He shook his head. 'Grapevine. Rumor control. One of the centurions at the Casa paying back a favor to an old friend on the island. Or, most probably, all three.'

Which is why 'secret, unannounced Annual General Inspections' are never secret or unannounced.

'It's very hard to keep a secret these days,' he added, 'if people don't think it should be kept or owe favors to or need favors from people who don't want it kept.'

Lourdes looked suddenly guilty. 'Well . . . I did tell Artemisia that we were coming. Someone, after all, had to make sure Quarters One was ready.'

Again, Carrera shook his head. 'She didn't spread the word. Arti can keep a secret.'

Lourdes briefly considered nukes and destroyed cities and mass murder and thought, Lord, I hope so, her and Alena . . . well, about Alena, at least, I have no doubts whatsoever. I'd be jealous of her, I think, and her relationship to Hamilcar, if I weren't so completely sure that if a meg were coming for Ham, the fish would have to eat through Alena to get to my boy . . . and she'd be prying its teeth loose from the inside while kicking its gut into jelly the whole time it was swimming.

As the plane practically auto-hovered over the landing spot—there was enough of a head wind for the thing almost to take off on its own—Carrera glanced over the assembly. He saw that it was not just people, soldiers and their families, but that someone had arranged an honor guard in legionary dress whites, set up a public address system, and had a limousine on station. He turned his head slowly, looking for someone senior he could tear a new asshole in for ruining his planned, private landing.

But, No, no one above a junior centurion that I can see. And I'm not going to chew one of them out for being . . . well . . . for being polite, I suppose. And it is kind of thoughtful.

I hope to Hell they aren't really expecting a speech.

* * *

'That was a very nice little speech,' Lourdes said, as the two walked from the limousine to the open doorway of Quarters One. Artemisia stood in the doorway. 'Especially since you weren't planning on giving one.'

'I didn't say a word to anyone except my uncle Xavier and Mac,' Arti announced, loudly. 'And they wouldn't have told.'

Xavier wouldn't, Carrera silently agreed. Mac? I'm not so sure. Though I am sure that if it was the Sergeant Major he'd have covered his tracks well enough that I'd never find out even if I tried. So why bother? Hell with it.

As Carrera and Lourdes began to ascend the steps to the wide, columned wrap-around porch, they heard a hellish screech, which screech was soon followed by a brightly feathered head bearing remarkably intelligent eyes.

'Jinfeng!' Carrera exclaimed, stopping and bending down to skritch the blue, green, red and gold reptilian bird atop its head. This particular bird had been the pet of—though perhaps companion to was closer to correct—Carrera's late wife, Linda.

The bird pulled its head back as if to say, You don't visit in years. You don't write. You don't call. Harrumph!

'I'm sorry, Jinfeng,' Carrera said, apologetically. He kept his hand outstretched while saying, 'I wasn't well for a while.'

Bright the bird may have been, about as much so as a gray parrot. Still, it wasn't bright enough to understand the words. It understood the tone well enough, though . . . well enough to give one last indignant screech and a half-hearted snap that deliberately missed the fingers before moving its head into Carrera's reach.

'I've been feeding them,' Artemisia said.

'Them?' Carrera asked.

Arti didn't have to answer. While Jinfeng was being well skritched, three more heads suddenly popped out of the bushes and offered their own screeches.

'Jinfeng! You're a mother!'

* * *

The very existence of the Noahs was surmised from three factors, a handful of artifacts, the Rift itself, and the very strange variety of life on Terra Nova.

That life came, broadly speaking, from several sources. One source was Terra Nova itself, though little of the planet's naturally evolved life had survived the introduction of other, more highly evolved life. Little of it, too, was commercially valuable, though Terra Novan olives—a gray, wrinkled skin, plum sized, and highly astringent stoned fruit—were. Likewise, chorley was a native grain obtained from a low, sunflower-like plant, that made an excellent, buttery bread. Too, there were various forms of peppers, from Joan of Arc to Holy Shit to Satan Triumphant, which spiced up, literally, Terra Novan cuisine.

(Actually, no one could really eat Satan Triumphant in anything except the most dilute trace amounts, but it had found commercial value as a vesicant, a blister agent, during the planet's Great Global War which had ended sixty-one years before. It was also used occasionally as a food preservative. This was touchy, though, as the slightest trace too much of Satan Triumphant and the food would be completely preserved. Not only would bugs not touch it, neither would people.)

Then there was the alien, and possibly genengineered, life. Almost all of that was dangerous. There were the septic mouthed, nocturnally predatory, winged reptiles called 'antaniae,' with their nightly cries of 'mnnbt, mnnbt, mnnbt.' Among humans, these were dangerous mostly to children, especially small children, and the old and weak. The moonbats were predators of a particularly nasty sort. Venomless, their bite would begin an infection that only heroic measures could defeat, and then only if caught in time. Otherwise, the victim would succumb to the infection, more moonbats gathering as it weakened, until the combination of numbers and weakness allowed the vile creatures to descend and feed on the still living victim. Antaniae were especially fond of eating the eyes and brains of the very young.